This last week, when spent some time thinking about this blog and why I do it, I found myself journaling about what this space actually is.
The name was inspired by my children who STILL ask for snacks immediately after every meal and have passed the tradition down to their younger sibling. It’s fitting because this is a place where I write about parenting, and some days being the Keeper of the Snacks feels like the gist of it.
But while the kiddos play a pretty predominant role in the blogging content, the blog is also about me. The things that inspire me and make me laugh and scare the crap out of me, the Keeper of the Snacks.
This blog is a place for me to write. I love writing. It’s how I think. It’s how I process things I’m learning. I love words and finding ways they fit together and how that togetherness changes them and makes them grow. I love starting with a thought and not knowing how to get it out but working at it anyway until I finally do. I love it when something complicated in my brain turns into something clear on paper.
And I’m a word hoarder. I love books and my house is overflowing with them. I literally hide some of them so that people won’t get freaked out by the amount of books in my house. I write this blog so that I can look back on this and see where we’ve been, either with fondness or relief or both. I write it so that my kids can look back on this some day and be horrified by what a nerd their mother was.
I love writing so much that sometimes I think about trying harder at it. You know, like, doing it. Regularly. Working at it. Trying my hand at writing a short story. Or a novel. Trying harder to promote my blog or get my work out there.
But writing is scary and bravery is hard and I’ve only just started trying on the writer hat, wearing it around in my bedroom when no one is watching, seeing how it looks in the mirror.
I have a lot of “good” reasons to be scared. What if I suck at it? What if I completely embarrass myself? Wouldn’t I be better off devoting myself to a decent job with a dependable paycheck? Maybe writing is just a hobby, you know?
And plus, I don’t really know HOW to be A Writer. I don’t know how to balance writing what I want to write with writing by the rules that will make me “successful”. I just don’t know.
So I distract myself with laundry and family calendars on the side of the fridge and I read stuff other people write and I admire them for it and I think maybe that’s fine, to just focus on the things that I should be doing instead.
But I always end up back here, writing. Even though I don’t really know how to and even though what I write sucks sometimes. I end up back here because I love it.
As I was sprucing up the blog like a lake cabin I haven’t been to in a few months, puttering around dusting and getting things back in order and thinking about what I’m even doing here, I started working on a little statement of intention.
“A blog about the joy, inspiration, and humor of motherhood… and the struggle to stay human through it all.”
I messed around with the wording a little. The first half I was fine with, but it’s after the dot dot dot that I couldn’t quite figure out how to put my thought into words. The struggle to find yourself in the journey? The journey to find yourself in the struggle? The challenge of being an individual in the midst of the greatest chaos and love of your life?
Instead I settled on “the struggle to stay human”.
Because being human means having goals and dreams and plans for your SELF, even when you barely have enough time to use the bathroom by yourself during the day.
Being human means remembering that motherhood can be the greatest gift in your life AND it still doesn’t have to be the only thing that defines you.
Being human means making mistakes and failing, at motherhood and at other things, and knowing that those mistakes don’t define you either.
Being human means being brave enough to keep showing up and doing what you love even when you aren’t sure you know how. It means being brave and human enough to learn as you go. It means being brave and human enough to do what you love even if it means being vulnerable.
It means being brave and human because you want your kids to see you being brave and human so that they know that they are capable of being brave and human too.
I don’t always know what I’m doing here or out there in the world, but I do know that I want to be brave and human enough to keep doing what I love. So I’ll write that down as my intention and I’ll post it on the side of my blog to remind myself. And the rest I’ll figure out as I go.